Presently, there are many types of mounting brackets available on the market for mounting electrical boxes to wall studs. Many of the mounting brackets are designed to be mounted to a single wall stud for supporting a single electrical box. While these mounting brackets work well, they do not provide a wide range of adjustability between wall studs and only support a single electrical box. Accordingly, mounting brackets for supporting a plurality of electrical boxes have been developed which span between a pair of adjacent wall studs to allow the builder to conveniently position the electrical box or boxes between the wall studs.
One example of a prior mounting bracket, which is capable of supporting a wide variety of electrical boxes, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,137 to Oliva. The mounting bracket of the Oliva patent provides infinite adjustability and can be used with boxes of different depths. Moreover, the mounting bracket of the Oliva patent can be used to either a 4 inch square electrical box or a 411/16 inch square electrical box or both. However, one disadvantage of the mounting bracket disclosed in the Oliva patent is that it allows for too much vertical movement of certain sizes of electrical boxes such that one of the mounting screws of a wiring device can bottom out on the mounting bracket and thus cannot be fully threaded into the cover. More specifically, the central cutout of the mounting bracket of the Oliva patent is too large such that mounting screws coupling the electrical box and cover together can move vertically within the central cutout of the mounting bracket of the Oliva patent. This movement of the electrical box can cause the threaded hole in the cover for mounting a wiring device to overlap with the mounting bracket such that the mounting screw of the wiring device cannot be fully threaded into the cover.
To avoid this problem, the opening or central cutout of the mounting bracket of the Oliva patent could be designed to prevent vertical movement of either a 4 inch square electrical box or a 411/16 inch square electrical box by sizing the central cutout to engage the mounting screws of the electrical box and cover. However, if the central cutout is sized to limit vertical movement of either the 4 inch square electrical box or the 411/16 inch square electrical box, then the central cutout will not be correctly sized to accommodate the other mentioned electrical box to prevent vertical movement relative thereto.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a mounting bracket which has all of the advantages of the electrical mounting bracket disclosed in the Oliva patent as well as the ability to mount both 4 inch square electrical boxes and 411/16 inch square electrical boxes such that the electrical box mounting bracket will substantially prevent relative movement of both types of electrical boxes mounted thereto.
This invention addresses these problems in the art, along with other needs which will become apparent to those skilled in the art once given this disclosure.